In addition to their non-agricultural uses, tractors can be hitched to many agricultural implements to achieve a variety of desired applications, such as tillage, seeding, cutting or harvesting. Formerly, the implements were hitched to the tractors and pulled behind the tractor. However, in an effort to increase productivity, it can be desirable to push one implement and pull another to increase an operating width that is up to twice the transport width of the implements.
Making implements wider can also increase efficiency, but there are problems associated with transporting the tractor/implement combination between different fields. In response to this problem, some tillage and seeding implements can be hydraulically folded into narrow transport widths. For example, in a mower conditioner arrangement, one mower conditioner is carried on the front of the tractor and two mower conditioners are pulled behind the tractor that are hydraulically folded for transport. Alternately, bidirectional tractors have included one mower conditioner mounted at the front end and another mower conditioner having a pivot tongue is pulled behind the tractor. Each of these configurations requires a tractor having front three point hitches and a power take-off (PTO), or specially designed implement frames, or implements that themselves must be specially designed, thereby greatly increasing the costs of these components.
What is needed is an implement hitch that is compatible with tractors lacking specially configured fronts, i.e., three point hitches or PTO, the hitch requiring minimal change to existing implements.